


Crown of Vines, Crown of Silver

by Marquise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Post Series, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 09:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise/pseuds/Marquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petyr and the Tully women, in ten parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crown of Vines, Crown of Silver

**Author's Note:**

> Written from Round 2 of the GOT_Exchange on LJ.

i.

He knows that she hadn’t thrown her crown aside in distaste.

The flowers had been lovely when Petyr had gathered them that morning, before the girls had awakened. When he had awkwardly presented them to her, Cat had smiled her lady’s smile (it always unnerved him how _grown-up_ she sometimes seemed, when only a few years separated them) and thanked him in a kind voice. As the afternoon sun drifted across the sky, he had sat with her and Lysa among the tall grass, listening to birdsong as he wove the flowers into a fragile crown. In his mind, it would be a crown fit for the queen in a song.

Petyr’s hands were clumsier than he would have liked and he destroyed as many flowers as he managed to weave, but in the end the crown was passable and colorful, even with petals strewn sadly at his feet.  


He had smiled crookedly as he sat it among Cat’s hair. “My Queen of Love and Beauty,” he said and she _laughed_.

It hadn’t been a cruel laugh, truthfully. It was playful, the laugh of someone who thought he was making a jape, but he knew he wouldn’t soon forget the sound of it.

She had kept it on though, even when Lysa sulked and told her it would look much better on _her_ , until the delicate vines began to break apart and she had to take it off before making her way back home, the remains dangling from her hand.

That had been hours ago. Lysa has kept him busy, but as the evening turned into twilight even she was forced to admit it is time to start back. As they make their way home, walking alongside the stream that runs through the field, they happen across the crown, broken and lying in the water.

He stops in his tracks but doesn’t make a sound. In truth, he is afraid of what would come out if he opens his mouth and struggles to make his expression a mask of detachment. It was nothing, a crown that had already been damaged, and she _had_ worn it all day. He holds his tongue and tries to slow his heart. Lysa, however, makes a soft cry and bends to scoop the crown up as though it were an injured bird.

She looks at him with wide eyes that glisten in the fading sun. “It was beautiful…” she whispers, then places one of the flowers in her hair, almost reverently. “See?”

He can tell she wants to say something more, but as she reaches for him, he turns and hides his face.

ii.

Lysa invites him into her chambers under a shroud of secrecy. They have reached an age where this sort of thing is simply not done.

He stands in the center of the room as she digs something out from beneath her mattress. He doesn’t know where to put his hands or where to look, and finds himself staring in the mirror.

“Here it is!” she says triumphantly producing a thick, leather-bound book. She sits on the bed and beckons him toward her and, with a fleeting glance at the door, he joins her.

She finds what she is looking for right away and he doesn’t even have to ask what it is. Placed between two yellow stained pages are the pressed remains of a flower, the stem broken, the blue petals darkened.

“I saved it, remember?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, as though this is a holy thing. “Queen of Love and Beauty?”

Petyr meets her eyes. Her expression is wide open, vulnerable, and he wonders if his was the same when Cat laughed at him.

He can tell she means to go on, but he kisses her out of a desire for silence.

iii.

The physical resemblance is strong, certainly.

That’s not all, though. He sees her eyes shimmer as she speaks of knights and songs, and it reminds him of someone else.

He feels a need to break that, to harden her heart.

iv.

Alayne pours the wine without spilling a drop, even though he can tell she is listening intently.

Not that this evening’s conversation is particularly interesting, but it does provide her good practice. And she does still need practice. She may fool some of the lower lords, but _he_ can tell she’s listening and that could be a dangerous flaw if they are ever in the company of particularly skilled players.

Tonight, she has clearly caught the eye of one of the younger lords. This in itself is completely unsurprising, though Petyr regards her slight maiden’s smile with a distaste that he washes away with more wine. 

When their guests finally retire to their rooms, he has her remain behind and tell him all she learned.

It’s mostly useless information, as he thought it would be. But when she tells him what the young lord had been talking with her about—some puffed-up tale of valor and chivalry—he zeros in on it.  
“I would have thought you had lost your taste for such tales,” he says, pouring the last of the bottle into his cup with a deliberate hand. She had stopped refilling his goblet some time ago, and he is forced to do so himself.

She purses her lips as she works out what to say. “I have, somewhat. But a good tale is still a good tale, even if I know it can’t come true.”

He meets her eyes. Her gaze is sad and lost and unnervingly familiar, and he rises to take her in his arms.

She returns the embrace with shaky hands. She’s stronger than she was before and he knows that he really shouldn’t _care_ , but he wonders how long he’ll see that uncomfortable reflection of romanticism in her. 

v.

He slips into her chamber unannounced, but not, he thinks, unexpected.

Alayne stands stock-still in front of her looking glass, dressed in her finery, and when her reflected eyes meet his, she favors him with a small smile.

Petyr crosses the room to stand behind her and places his hands on her waist; she does not flinch or tense under his touch. “Are you ready?” he asks, hoping his voice doesn’t catch.

She nods, just slightly, and it is then that he notices she is biting her lip.

“You needn’t worry,” he says. “Harrold is a fine man. I wouldn’t marry my daughter off to an unworthy man, now would I?”

“I’m not worried,” she answers, and the steadiness of her tone is enough to make him believe her. 

“Good.” He smirks and reaches up to adjust the ringlet of flowers in her dark hair. “Although I must say, Harrold has no idea what a prize he’s getting. My Queen of Love and Beauty.”

She doesn’t laugh. She smiles, but it is a warm smile, the kind he thought was long dead. He can’t remember the last time he has seen that.

He rests his forehead against the top of her head and closes his eyes.

vi.

She cries when Harrold dies and, unnervingly, he can’t tell if her tears are real.

He comforts her all the same, of course, and for a while they are practically inseparable. During this period he occasionally, cruelly, wishes to remind her of the role she played in these tragic events. He doesn’t, but sometimes he looks into her red-rimmed eyes and wonders if she forgets. 

But her tears dry when the expected grieving period is at an end. On a cold afternoon around that time, she enters his solar, gaze steely and practical and shoulders thrown back, and begins to discuss the next step of their plan to get back her home.

He’s never been prouder.

vii.

He waits until she has finished her wine before he produces the slim wooden box and slides in wordlessly across the table.

Sansa lifts one eyebrow and her mouth quirks in the slightest of smiles, but Petyr has spent enough time around her to tell she is truly pleased and surprised. Her control is remarkable, though he sometimes finds himself longing for a wider smile. 

She runs one pale hand over the box, the polished wood making the fine table look dull in comparison. “You shouldn’t have…” she starts, her tone measured. If he’s not mistaken, her voice cracks slightly, betraying some of the softer Sansa of before. He shouldn’t be as pleased as he is that a thread of innocence remains in the woman he created.

“Open it,” he says, rising from his chair to stand beside her. She runs her hand over the box one last time before cracking it open, delicately, as though it will shatter at any moment.

The light catches the necklace at the same time as she sucks in a breath, an oddly unguarded expression that sends a chill through him. It _is_ a beautiful piece, if he says so himself—finely-wrought silver, coiled like delicate vines, dotted with sapphires. 

“ _Oh Petyr_ ,” she whispers and he smiles, suddenly feeling younger than his years. The memory of vines in the water threatens to ruin the moment, but he manages to push that aside by sliding the necklace out of the box.

“I had it made special,” he explains, as he hooks it around her slim neck. Sansa’s skin raises in gooseflesh when his fingers touch it and he feels her tremble slightly--another barely-perceived crack in her armor. He finds himself focusing on these few cracks more and more often these days. He leans in to press a kiss on her cheek. “It matches your eyes.”

She turns to face him and even though her smile hasn’t grown, her eyes betray her joy. He always told her they were her weakness and she has, over the years, developed a level of detachment that fools most people, but not him. Petyr has chastised her for it in the past, and now he wonders why.

“Thank you,” she says, kissing him lightly. He can taste gratitude and wine on her lips. 

“Wait…wait till you see it in the mirror,” he responds, nearly stammering like a boy. He winds a lock of her hair around one finger, admiring the way the color drinks in the light. All this time and he’s still nearly speechless by the resemblance, even though the years have sharpened Sansa’s features to the point where she stands nearly peerless. And it’s not just her looks that draw him now—her wit, her cunning, her cool demeanor, all combine to make her his ideal woman. He is proud of the role he played in drawing that out and ignores the nagging voice that asks if he constructed it for himself. 

viii.

She is still wearing it when he wakes in the morning.

She is already up, seated at her vanity, the rising sun caught in her hair. He sucks in a breath at the sight. She looks as though she is lost in some private thought that she pushes aside the second she feels his eyes on her.

He rises from the bed, shrugs on his dressing gown, and goes to stand behind her. “Still like it?”

She smiles a genuine smile. Sometimes in the dawn he can tell that the ice hasn’t yet formed. “I do. Thank you.”

Petyr lays a hand on her shoulder and kisses the top of her head. “My Queen of Love and Beauty.” He sees her close her eyes, the smile still on her lips, and recklessly pushes on. “Are you happy?”

Her eyes flick open, surprised. “Of course. Everything is going so well.”

Sansa says it in a light tone and part of him believes her, but he still presses on. “Not exactly like the songs, hmm?  
”  
Her smile turns sour. “Life is not a song,” she says in a clipped tone, before rising and wrapping her arms about him. 

ix.

They have the North, the Vale, and the Riverlands, but he’s still not satisfied and neither, he suspects, is she.

In his plans he had always pictured what the endgame would look like, but he never really calculated how much he would miss the fight. The destruction.

He wonders if she gets the same thrill from the game that he does, if the sparkle he sometimes sees in her eyes is real. He asks her, one night, what it is she really wants.

She is silent for a long moment, looking up at the bed canopy, hands clasped in front of her. Then her lips twist into a smile and she says, in a low voice, “I want them to see than I’m capable.”

It doesn’t matter who she refers to, or that it’s not the same group he’s hated for years. He laughs and kisses her until he is practically breathless. 

x.

She makes a lovely queen.

She is strong and reserved, almost cold, and it is only with some effort that he can recall the fragile girl she once was. There is still some kindness there—her people do love her, after all—but some of that, he knows, is all part of the calculation.

In some ways, he rests easy these days. He has given her what he promised. He has given her a crown of silver and sapphires that sparkles like her eyes and he knows that this one has weight to it, that she’ll never place it aside. 

He is less sure about his self, despite all her assurances, despite the fact that he has been a constant and trusted adviser. He has never voiced these insecurities, of course, but sometimes he wonders if she senses them. She sometimes kisses him in the middle of sentences or favors him with sweeter smiles than usual, and that voice in his head asks if it’s all a ploy to comfort him.

It’s a sweet ploy though, he won’t deny it. And she still has need of him, for now, still lets him pull her into his arms when something breaks through her armor. 

But sometimes, when she kisses him, he thinks of Lysa and her book and he grips her waist just a little too hard.


End file.
